Category Archives: IT

November 4, 2021 · 02:18

Tools of convenience

It is 01:39, I thought it was going to be a boring Thursday. Yet, there she is, everyones favourite tool Stephanie Kirchgaessner is making another run for it. She gives us ‘Israeli spyware company NSO Group placed on US blacklist’. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/03/nso-group-pegasus-spyware-us-blacklist) comes with all posturing, yet no evidence. She gives us “It comes three months after a consortium of journalists working with the French non-profit group Forbidden Stories, including the Guardian, revealed multiple cases of journalists and activists who were hacked by foreign governments using the spyware” yet there are a few sides to consider. This so called ‘consortium of essay writers’ working with the clowns calling themselves the ‘non-profit group Forbidden Stories’ came with insinuations and no evidence. On July 23rd 2021 I wrote ‘From horse to course’, there I gave the readers “but consider that if the media has not released a dashboard of these 50,000 numbers, I believe that my case is rather clear, I would personally consider that list is nothing more than the fabrication of a stakeholder who needs the revenue that the NSO Group currently has”, in addition to that, the BBC gives us (the link is in the same story) “Of the people whose numbers are on the list, 67 agreed to give Forbidden Stories their phones for forensic analysis. And this research, by Amnesty International Security Labs, reportedly found evidence of potential targeting by Pegasus on 37 of those”, so basically they could prove it in no more then 60% of the cases which they call ‘evidence of potential targeting’, I am not debating it, but this setting where we saw a few mentions that the NSO Group pleaded innocence, we need to have evidence, and the whatever you wanna call it pointlessly blaming people without presenting evidence constitutes in my humble opinion a person too useless to consider a valid source of information.

She goes on giving us “The Guardian and others also revealed that the mobile numbers of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and nearly his entire cabinet were contained on a leaked list of individuals who were selected as possible targets of surveillance”, a leaked list that was opposed by the Verge and a few other sources which I dealt with again in ‘The same gramophone’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/16/the-same-gramophone/) We see several issues with what is stated from a few articles, but the part was that the leaked number list was from 2016, and there were other considerations too, in part that 50,000 numbers represent $600,000,000 in the cheapest configuration and so far, no evidence was ever shown that the NSO Group had made THAT much money. We also get the show of a party line “NSO has said that its spyware is used by foreign government clients to target serious criminals. It has denied that any of its clients ever targeted Macron or any French government officials”, I get that. It does not make the NSO group innocent, but so far the confused tool Stephanie Kirchgaessner and whatever master she barks to are not presenting ANYONE clear evidence. I stated it 6 months ago there too. A top line of what was available and optionally evidence would have been presented and in 6 months none of them did any of that. 

Have we stopped being nations of laws? There is a second side to all this it is seen in the headline  ‘Israeli spyware company NSO Group placed on US blacklist’, we get “Decision against company at heart of Pegasus project reflects deep concern about impact of spyware on US national security interests”, OK that is fair, the US has national interests and as such they have the right to push for their national interests, I cannot and will not debate that, it is their right. I just wished the Guardian had actually done their homework and not hide behind “It comes three months after a consortium of journalists working with the French non-profit group Forbidden Stories, including the Guardian, revealed multiple cases of journalists and activists who were hacked by foreign governments using the spyware”, that and unsubstantiated mentions makes for a shoddy article, one that is debatable on too many sides and degrades the Guardian from their AAA status to a mere B-. Feel free to oppose this, you only have to get actual evidence and so far none of them presented any and several sources debated what some presented, a mess and this is the third time I personally see the name Stephanie Kirchgaessner towards something that I personally regard to be shoddy. Once happens, twice perhaps if the career is long enough, but three times? As I personally see it, the average journalism intern is better than that. 

And no matter how we slice it, Shalev Hulio, NSO’s founder has a larger issue and optionally new avenues to explore. I wonder if that was the content of the meeting that is given to us as “But in the weeks that followed the publication of the Pegasus project, Israeli officials met with counterparts in the US and France to discuss allegations of abuse of the technology.” I think the current administration is shitting bricks, they are scared. The NSO group is the first time in history that a private company had a better grasp of technology then the NSA EVER had. And the next credit ceiling conversations are a mere 7 weeks away, I reckon that the democrats are afraid that any deal towards that comes out into the open from any non-US source. It must be awful to rely on tools you owe big time, but that is merely my take on the matter.

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October 30, 2021 · 12:02

Realisation

I had the idea already for a few days, yet it wasn’t until Rachel Riley (one of three mathematicians in the UK that are exceedingly hotter than a nuclear explosion) said something on Twitter that got me thinking and you need to be aware. And you need to be aware now, not tomorrow.

To set the stage you need to grasp back to (what is categorised as) a game called ‘Second Life’. A virtual setting. Not unlike the ‘environment’ you saw in the movie Ready player one. Now consider that meta is second life on serious steroid. It is in all directions 1000 times larger and it will be for each person 1000 times more crowded with objects. Look around you, look at the largest apartment or mansion you could ever dream of. Now consider that EVERY person will have a mansion or a penthouse like that. Now consider that every person has it filled with stuff, all of it linked to advertisements or optional an advertisement free space (for a price). So Zuckerberg is sitting on an approach that will make him billions per month. It is quite ingenious and we were always going to go in that direction, yet Mark is getting there ahead of all. This explains the 10.000 people he is hiring. By the time they launch he will have optionally well over a million objects and thousands of locations. It will also be a space where people could make real and serious money. But that is not what this is about.

There is also a serious danger, a danger that might not be seen, but Rachel alerted me to this in a different way and my mind started to race. Consider that items could have historical significance, items could be personally set and traced. As such we can see the stage where neo-nazi’s have their flags, their items and their locations all heralding WW2 Germany, all out in the open and there will be for the longest time nothing anyone can do against it. More importantly, hacker could facilitate ‘scraping’ and replace the stage with German WW2, or ISIS flags. And how long until we see protected locations advocating radicalisation? This is not an accusation against Zuckerberg et al. This will be a consequence of a new environment that will be driven to user interaction loaded with all kinds of advertising. Now, I admit that it seems that I am against the advertising, but I do not. There is no such thing as a free ride. I am worried that the advertiser tag will allow for a little more than the original designers set their minds to. A stage where A lead to C because B was unknowingly too close to A. A stage that no one can vouch for but it will be a consequence. Metaverse allows for so much more new beauty, but the beauty of one is the nightmare of the other and there remains a debate what is one and what is the other. A stage that is assumed and at ties presumed but none is guaranteed as that new world is not ready yet. 

And it will not be long until you can link systems, consoles and other media to your location and then the borders between your real life and your meta life will start to fade a little, all the sources all ready to be framed, to be mailed within the Metaverse and that is the beginning. You will have a large TV that will show you trailers, advertisements and intro’s to things you are interested in. Millions will be able to reach you, millions more will be set to a stream for virtual radio and virtual TV, optionally virtual console too. Thee amount of advertisements will triple optionally a bit more. And as we sign on, we forget to sign off and the race begins.

Zuckerberg did the one thing that others failed to consider at this point, he moved the boundaries towards a much larger stage a much larger population and it will impact advertisements for all others. A stage that was there and has been there since 2003, now that we are getting close to the full 5G stage, Zuckerberg found a new application and it will make them rich beyond believe. Yet the other side will also be there. How long until someone hacks the Israeli flag and replaces it with the Nazi Germany flag? 

How long until people will request a Horch 400 Polizei-Mannschaftswagen 1? And there would be a decent case to have such a classic automobile. None of it will be some neo nazi reason. But the filter people will not be able to tell the difference and that is where the problem will really start. The grey area an area that would grow on a near daily basis and it allows those having less than pure reasons to set the larger stage and harass others. It is a larger stage all because the current social media is ridden with bullies, trolls and other types of negative charging entities. 

I wonder how long it will take the media and politicians to see the dangers we are heading to and we are heading to dangerous water, you better believe it sooner rather than too late. 

I have no plans to be anti Metaverse, but it needs to be said that it needs a lot more security and protection than we see in Facebook at present. 

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October 27, 2021 · 19:53

The petulant bully

Yes, we have met them before. The bully screaming ‘Foul, foul!’ Often enough we are nice enough to ignore them, yet not this time. It was the BBC who brought me ‘WikiLeaks founder’s extradition appeal explained’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-59053803) The setting has two sides. In the first it is a legal stage that the US has, an appeal is a legal right to any party. Yet in opposition, there was clearly established that Julian Assange did not do an act of treason, there are laws in those days (much stronger ones) that gave him the optional status of distributor. For those interested in a history lesson lets jump back to the age of Grunge (1991).

“the first websites to be sued for defamation based on the statements of others argued that they were merely distributors, and not publishers, of the content on their sites. One of the first such cases was Cubby v. CompuServe, Inc., 776 F.Supp. 135 (S.D.N.Y. 1991). CompuServe provided subscribers with access to over 150 specialty electronic “forums” that were run by third parties. When CompuServe was sued over allegedly defamatory statements that appeared in the “Rumorville” forum, it argued that it should be treated like a distributor because it did not review the contents of the bulletin board before it appeared on CompuServe’s site. The court agreed and dismissed the case against CompuServe”

Wikileaks can rely on that stage as well (as can Julian Assange). In the second degree, let’s take a look at an actual traitor (nor Dirk Benedict). So in those days Bradley, now Chelsea Manning betrayed the service, handed classified materials to people who should not have them and as such Manning was sentenced to 35 years at the maximum-security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. Yet, then President Obama bowed to bleeding heart pinko’s and commuted the sentence after 7 years. Manning now gets speaking engagements whilst the US is still bleeding from the acts of Manning 12 years ago. As such, Julian Assange spend twice the amount in seclusion and imprisonment that Manning, an actual traitor did. 

Am I happy? No! Assange and Wikileaks did something stupid and massively dangerous, especially the diplomatic cables, it screwed up US interests on a near global scale. Yes, they lied, yet so does the bulk of all other governments (they call it denial), as such the US will be playing with a loaded deck for several more years to come. We can go into some deep version of she dais, she said but that is no progress. The critical stage is that the traitor got off (in more than one way) and for years the US government hunted and haunted Julian Assange and they keep on continuing to do so. As I personally see it it makes the US a petulant bully. Let’s not forget that they are entitled to do so, yet in all this what will it bring them? There would be a minimal case if Manning was still in Leavenworth, but that is not the case is it?

And to rely on the courts having a right to their day is also fake. Consider all the cases where the courts never had a chance (Epstein anyone?) and that happened all in the US of A. We cannot tell how the appeal will go and I do not have the legal insight for this, but there will be a lot of eyes on this case, not in the first for all those fearing extradition to the US, this appeal is important to the US too, I get that. Yet the reason behind it is no longer the larger limelight, especially as the traitor behind this was released years ago and is making a living (as I personally see it) in questionable ways. I always wanted to be the IT intelligence guy, they gave it to some traitor, two actually when you consider Edward Snowden, he at least had the common decency to defect to Russia. 

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October 23, 2021 · 22:41

You again?

That was my first thought when I saw the Guardian give us ‘France and Israel hold ‘secret’ talks to defuse phone spyware row’ with the added ‘Stephanie Kirchgaessner’. I have seen her work before and it happened on March 26th 2021 when I wrote ‘The joy of discovery’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/03/26/the-joy-of-discovery/)  there I stated “this was an article that an intern could have written and as such more and more question marks on ‘Saudi bashing’ surface and the ring of those doing this is is becoming more and more debatable. Yet in all this, no one is asking questions, no one seems to notice. I did initially in a previous video article with Stephanie Kirchgaessner, but it could have been an editing issue, now I am no longer sure. I am not questioning the stage we see here, yet such a space for a threat all whilst dying children in Yemen get less space, whilst Al Jazeera gives us ‘People in Yemen are not just dying, they are being left to die’ (2 days ago), I start to wonder what the focal point of a US investigative reporter has become”. Now I see her in this piece and the hair on the back of my neck is standing up. So, let’s see if I am right again.

The first thing I see is “In July, it was reported that the phone numbers of some French cabinet members, as well as Macron himself, appeared on a leaked database of mobile phone numbers which included some selected as possible targets for surveillance by government clients of NSO” I and others reported on this, in several sources thee is debate on the truth of that leaked list, the second part is that the list was also regarded as fake in another source years ago. I discussed this part in ‘From horse to course’ on July 23rd 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/23/from-horse-to-course/) it is there that I mention the Guardian who gave “NSO has said Macron was not a “target” of any of its customers, meaning the company denies he was selected for surveillance using its spyware, saying in multiple statements that it requires its government clients to use its powerful spying tools only for legitimate investigations into terrorism or crime”, the setting that the so called leaked list sets the stage that the NSO group must have had an income surpassing $600,000,000 which they never did (they are doing well, but not that well). In addition the lack of any dashboard and a lot of other elements make the stage a waste of time. In this I personally see that Stephanie Kirchgaessner has become the journalistic joke she might always have been. The cranky aunt you keep around on Christmas to entice you to have more eggnog so her voice fades into background noise. 

In this there is (as I personally see it) no leaked list, there might be a list, but it is someone else’s list. And the waste of time is seen with “There is no firm evidence that the phones of the five cabinet members were successfully hacked, but the Mediapart allegations indicate the devices were targeted with the powerful spyware, which can intercept phone conversations, text messages, emails and photographs. It can also turn a mobile phone into a listening device by remotely controlling a phone’s recorder”, so basically through this, the Guardian has now less credibility than Russian news organisation RT? In the second, if there is no evidence, how is behind “the Mediapart allegations” why are we not given that? So as the article ends with “Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism nonprofit, and Amnesty International led the journalistic collaboration”, I personally wonder if that part should read “Fake Stories, a Paris-based glossy joke, and Amnesty Insufferable led the tantrum collaboration”, I personally wish that these jokes were buried (alive) and that these articles will not be allowed again until these so called journalists present a proper dashboard, they’ve had months now. It would have been one of the first things I did, just like the Pandora papers, all alleged claims and no verified substance. And like before why on earth is so called ‘Stephanie Kirchgaessner is the Guardian’s US investigations correspondent’ involved in something that is happening in France? Doesn’t the Guardian have credible journalists in Europe (preferably in France) or Israel? Did no one consider that little hiccup of debatable information?

And what are these so called traces? Its always nice to see anonymous sources and with “citing multiple anonymous sources and a confidential intelligence dossier”, all whilst the debatable sides are out there, it seems that the Guardian is slipping from top tier newspaper to some Murdoch wannabe glossy production. Feel free to oppose me, but do some of your homework and you will se that I am right. 

I wonder when people will catch on that this is a mere ploy, optionally an anti-Israel one. 

Enjoy the weekend!

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October 21, 2021 · 12:47

The mobile reward

We love the words ‘free’ and ‘rewards’. In this I am no different. This setting all started when I was taking a look at some version of ‘merge life’ iPad game. The game starts nice enough, challenging enough and I saw the warning ‘absurd amount of advertisements’ yet initially when I started that was not really the case. So after 10-15 minutes I had reached stage 2 and the game was oddly satisfying. It was then that the advertisement wave hit me. Close to one advertisement EVERY 30 SECONDS. Yes, that was absurd and after 2 advertisements I deleted the game. But the mind took a wander and I remembered something from the AC Brotherhood time. Yes Ubisoft did do good things, even innovative things. But the idea got twisted in my mind to something more. I wrote in a previous article about games for Amazon Luna, not sure if I did this (I have written over 2000 articles). There are two stages in this.

Stage One
Board games. Most forgot about the power of board games. They are simple games, but a setting we always return to. We do not need to kill everyone (I mostly do). There is tranquility in a game of chess, a game of checkers, a game of Monopoly, a game of Backgammon, a game of Shogun (and so on). But what w forget is that most people prefer to play alone. Now, there is some need to connect to like minded people, people who just want to play a game. For them there are three options. Set up the Luna to facilitate for 2-4 players, connect to up to 3 online players and play alone with computer managed NPC’s. The powers behind consoles and streamers forgot about that, didn’t they? Now the optional connected IP is separate and for another day.

Stage Two
When it comes to rewards, Ubisoft forgot a side (it was fair enough) but when we have mobile games they could lead to a lot more visibility. For the example I will use the Fable Pub games. You play the games and you get the rewards. In the mobile game it might be about money, yet the goal is to get to the 5 star (might have been 4 star) point. When you get there you will get 2 rewards. So each game there (Keystone, Fortune’s Tower and Spinnerbox) will result in a direct reward, a weapon, or an outfit that is linked to Fable in Amazon Luna (just as an example), the second reward is a Luna Key. Each board game will get a Luna Key, so if you play 4 games, each of the 4 games will get a key. And the Luna key will open a special option. So in the examples given Chess will give you a new board and a new chess set, Backgammon will give you a new board and stones (there are Indian, Egyptian boards and stones), Monopoly will give you an NHL, NFL or other city board, Shogun has additional colours and Japanese family crests and so on. Additional rewards that can grow the interest in other games and that is beside the setting that could be offered. All stages forgotten or ignored and why? Is the setting of a Luna Key so complex? Is the setting of offering the player something more not enticing? I would think that with all the bugs Ubisoft introduced they might go overboard pleasing the customers they so often disappointed. 

The stage of giving a player more is important (and growing in need), especially now. There are the bugs the glitches, yet when you add the congestion it comes down to the choice of limiting yourself to urban players, or give rural players options to play when there are too little. There is also the need to feed the beast (the players), they need to go to work, they need to be somewhere else and setting a stage where the player can optionally play a fitting mobile game (like Ubisoft did for AC Brotherhood) where the player can play to get a new unique 5 star blade, pistol, outfit or whatever. A stage that adds to the game, not replace it, or circumvent thresholds. Offer more, offer unique and they will love the brands they embrace even more. Machiavelli stated (in some form) “There is such a gap between how people actually live and how they ought to live that anyone who declines to behave as people do is schooling himself for catastrophe” it gives the setting for leaders to adhere to needs, but there is a hidden side here. “There is such a gap between how people expect rewards and how they should see them that anyone who declines to lead as people expects them to do is schooling himself for massive setbacks” It comes down to the stage of what exactly is a reward, if it needs to be earned (not paid for) it will grow in value, and gamers are all about earning showing that they had the goods to play the game. As an example CDPR (makers of Witcher III) created an in-game game named Gwent, we got to play for extra’s and it became a separate game too, now that game makes well over a million dollars annually. People got into the game and now it is a separate game that is leading gamers to more and the gamer has become willing to pay. The setting is that it is free and as people get into it they will spend the few dollars they need to get more cards and expansions. For streamers it is not that easy. The enticement of a monthly fee needs to be there, so as games add more value, the threshold for gaming THERE lowers and people become more eager to play and will play for all the free rewards, which is an oxymoron. As gamers get more by playing, they will play more and call other people to their cause. Yet we must not forget that at times the player needs a solitary moment and as systems accomodate that, the gaming borrow will become ever more comfortable. Consider the board game Man, don’t get angry (Indian: Pachisi). A 1914 game that so far has sold more than 70,000,000 copies. Yes most in an era that is pre IBM PC XT, yet we have always returned to places of comfort, for nostalgic reasons, for the simplicity of play and for the stage of pure randomness. You see too many games are all about changing the setting of what the dice do, too many are seemingly less random than we think and within ourselves we see that, even if the brain is not detecting it yet. You think it is chance that you are one square away from winning when the ‘computer adversarial pig’ throws double six? We automatically feel that it is bad luck because we see ‘dice’ but we forget it is a computer animation and that setting is starting to bite more and more, so the power of real randomness, of a real chance to win is becoming more and more important. In this as Amazon is developing games and Google is not, they have the advantage (I do not know where Netflix stands at present). And it is up to Amazon to create the most comfortable burrow (read: man cave) we can have before the competitors catch up. For now they are all about ‘Let Ubisoft do the cool stuff’ (glitches included), it is about comfort levels, especially in gaming. Niccolò Machiavelli wrote about this in 1513 (yes over 500 years ago). The greed driven seem to ignore it, the lesson was quite clear and whilst the greed driven come up with more versions of some form of Antón Castillo we can just investigate the list and see that games like Call of Duty did make $20 billion, but it is a mere 20% of what Pokemon made and Pokemon for the most is Nintendo only. There is an upside to tailoring to fun, it is what the people want and it is a lesson Microsoft (Sony too) have forgotten to much, too easily and too completely and it makes Nintendo the real threat to Sony, Amazon could go a similar route and surpass Microsoft more easily than they think (the fact that Microsoft is often in denial helps too). 

As I see it the consoles (streaming or not) is one, yet the ability to correctly connect a mobile or tablet has a lot more going for it than most realise and as that link is more and more visible the connected system (console or streamer) will reap additional rewards as well.

Just a thought, enjoy the day.

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October 20, 2021 · 21:51

The abacus paradox

The stage of what might never be is out there. There is a larger stage of what is about to happen and what might never happen. And I for one have no idea where to stand. You see, it is about what we read and what we do not know, or do we? To get there I need to do an old setting, a simple calculation, like you had in primary school (year 1) the stage is 34-15. Now you do it like there is no tomorrow, but then it was different. In that setting we had four minus five is not possible, so we borrow 10 then it becomes fourteen minus five making nine. Three minus one is two, that minus one is one, one and nine make nineteen, that is how we learned the simplest calculation (in 1969). It is not the math, it is the setting of borrowing one from the left making fourteen instead of four minus five. It is the borrowing part. You see, a setting hit me when I was confronted with ‘Micron to build $7 bln plant in Japan to expand DRAM production – report’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/micron-build-7-bln-plant-japans-hiroshima-report-2021-10-20/). In the article we see “U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc (MU.O) will build a new factory at its Japanese production site in Hiroshima at a cost of 800 billion yen ($7.0 billion), the Nikkan Kogyo newspaper reported on Wednesday.” Under most situations I merely shrug my shoulders. What do I care? Yet when my mind saw this, it raced back to several of these announcements. I believe it was 2018, it could have been 2017. Yet the stage then was that the resources needed for DRAM were limited. A finite equation on resources and the pressure was on. I personally believe that shortage was never dealt with, so it is nice to see a plant being built ‘too address shortage of DRAM’, but if there is still a shortage for manufacturing the problem merely shifts, it does not go away. TechRadar gave us in April “the company wants to optimise the use of its limited supply of silicon”, as one source gives us in May “Demand is much higher for all types of silicone products than one year ago. Demand started to increase in 4Q 2020 as global economies opened. Even when parts of the world were hit with second and third waves of Covid, economies did not shut down as they did in 1Q and 2Q 2020. As of today, demand is the same or slightly higher than prior to the pandemic”, this is not enough. You see it is one of the most common elements in the world, so we should not run out, but the mining and acquiring of it comes with health risks and there lies the rub. Forbes also gives us “China has called chip independence a top national priority in its latest five-year plan, while U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed to build a secure American supply chain by reviving domestic manufacturing. Even the European Union is mulling measures to make its own chips. But success is anything but assured.” There we also see more. The article (at https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-chip-production-why-hard-to-make-semiconductors/) gives us a lot to think about and if it isn’t the $7,000,000,000 they expect to spend, it is nothing against getting the right people, as such it could be seen as a severn billion dollar long-shot. Yet the stage of getting the Silica Dioxide has not been reached yet. The article also shows us “Building an entry-level factory that produces 50,000 wafers per month costs about $15 billion. Most of this is spent on specialised equipment—a market that exceeded $60 billion in sales for the first time in 2020.” So exactly how does one save on a plant that is already 8 billion short in month one? The numbers make no sense. Now, it is perfectly possible that they are two different plants, but the stage of 7 billion is weird all whilst several plants are being build and there is still a need for Silica Dioxide for the wafers. 

Now, I could be very wrong here, and that might be the case, but consider that 2020 gave us ‘TSMC to build advanced chip plant in southern Taiwan’ (May 2021), ‘Bosch opens Dresden chip plant as Europe aims for independence from Asia’ (Jun 2021), and let that not misdirect you, there are hundreds of plants, a massive amount of them in China, the stage becomes not merely who creates the chip, but who will have the plant to mine and create the required Silica Dioxide. It could be another stage for Saudi Arabia as sand is something they have in abundance, but to get one into the other takes time and takes the right secure machines as well as a few other skills. When this implodes (a not unlikely setting) the one who HAS the Silica Dioxide has an advantage. China claimed to be independent at present, most others cannot make that claim. China produces 64% of all silicon on the planet and the US pissed them off. Almost 10% is in Russia that leaves a lot less for the rest of the planet, so when I see the stage of two plants being build, I merely wonder where they get their source materials. The US at present creates less than 5% of all Silicon and the UK even less (number unknown to me). So when we see the larger stage and we look for Mineral Commodity Summaries we might learn that there are a few more kinks in those cables. Yes, I am willing to accept that they MIGHT solve those. Yet when was the last time you made a long-shot using billions on the word ‘MIGHT’? 

In all this I might be the one wrong here, but when you see three of these plants being made within a year and you realise the cost involved and there is a stage where the required resources for manufacturing are in many places, yet the bulk is in two places that certain politicians cannot reach. How does that investment sound to you?

I wouldn’t bet my stove on that risk, let alone a house (or apartment) but they are willing to bet the bank, I wonder what optional short term benefits they get before these tactical deciders seemingly run off with a large bonus to a beach far, far away. 

P.S. WordPress is still not fixing the colour issue.

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October 19, 2021 · 21:58

Searching for a reason

We all do that at times, we all search for a reason. Whether it is for a solution, to blame or to incite. These are the most likely reasons, but they are not the only ones. The thought came to mind when the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58961836) gave me ‘Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ‘may have lied to Congress’’ a stage where ‘may’ is operative. So there is not even any level of assurance that he ‘had most likely’ lied, that on the premise it was highly likely that he was not truthful, or any other stage of ‘creating doubt towards sincerity’. We are also given the claims that “Amazon copied products and rigged its search results in India to boost sales of its own brands”, as well as “sought to correct the record on the inaccurate media articles in question” and in finality we get “they were considering referring the firm “for criminal investigation””, so in the third, what ‘criminal investigation’? For allegedly rigging results in India? For inaccurate media articles? It is an open field and in all this, we need to consider that US congress is merely trying to get fines from rich companies any way they can get, it is what incompetent people tend to do, play the blame game. 

Yet to understand it we need to take a look at the Reuters article (at https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-india-rigging) where we get ‘Amazon copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands, documents show’. Here we are given “The internal documents also show that Amazon employees studied proprietary data about other brands on Amazon.in, including detailed information about customer returns” this is indeed a solid accusation. In addition we get “It is difficult to develop this expertise across products and hence, to ensure that we are able to fully match quality with our reference product, we decided to only partner with the manufacturers of our reference product”, it is quite the accusation, yet this happened in 2016. So in the first, why is this not in Indian courts? In the second, why do we see a bland US Congress setting when it is not an activity on American soil? It was Amazon.in, it was in India and referred to Indian products. In addition we get the small part at the very end of “In sworn testimony before the U.S. Congress in 2020, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos explained that the e-commerce giant prohibits its employees from using the data on individual sellers to help its private-label business. And, in 2019, another Amazon executive testified that the company does not use such data to create its own private-label products or alter its search results to favour them” I see it as two parts, in 2019 there is a stage of “Amazon executive testified that the company does not use such data to create its own private-label products or alter its search results to favour them” which would support the stage of wrongful action mentioned earlier, and in 2020 we get “prohibits its employees from using the data on individual sellers to help its private-label business”, as such a stage optionally exists that a flaw was found and dealt with. Optionally there remains a stage that in 2016 “Amazon employees working on the company’s own products, known as private brands or private labels, planned to partner with the manufacturers of the products targeted for copying”, so a stage remains that Indian employees became creative to create their own private fortune in debatable ways, a stage that was close over time and there Reuters has a larger issue. The documents, what EXACTLY do they prove? I am not against Reuters here, they have proven themselves a few times over, so I am asking exactly what internal documents were in play? If they were emails and there the language and the path is also important. Reuters might be on the money, but they start with “A trove of internal Amazon documents reveals how the e-commerce giant ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoff goods” and there we see the assumption it is linking ‘internal Amazon documents’ towards ‘the e-commerce giant’, yet these employees, how high up the ladder were they, were they all Indian? In that case can a quality case based on quantifiable data be made against the e-commerce giant, or is this the event involving a few rotten apples (sorry, rotten pieces of fruit). So when we see the questions that rise from the Reuters article, the US Congress made leaps without investigating the evidence before referring it for Criminal investigation. You see, there needs to be a viable case before referring it, so there needs to be decent questionable evidence and so far, no one has seen it and I reckon it might not be there in the way the BBC article gives us the goods. I think there is a lot more and in all this, when we see “sought to correct the record on the inaccurate media articles in question”, we could have seen evidence and more importantly the media can show the evidence that it was wrongful data handed to them, but we do not see that either (at present), the media is very protective of one another at the alleged expense of anyone else. 

Can Amazon have done something wrong? Yes, absolutely, the firm is too big, things fall through the cracks. Yet the chance of Jeff with the Telly Savalas hairdo Bezos, or Nate Sutton, Amazon’s associate general counsel to openly lie to Judiciary Committee is too ludicrous to consider. That is the stage and when I see “We strongly encourage you to make use of this opportunity to correct the record… as we consider whether a referral of this matter to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation is appropriate,” I feel that this is an attempt to get another fine out of Amazon. Yes, I agree that the letter is merely good form, but I reckon that the players would have done a decent level of homework before that letter went out, and with another shutdown 9 weeks away, America needs all the cash they can lay their fingers on, I am merely wondering if their path is all on the up and up. But that is merely me, questioning whatever I see. I merely wonder if anyone else noticed the questions that the article brings up, it might be my not so trusting nature.

If Amazon did something wrong, OK. It happens and a fine will be the result, but this happened in India, so why is there no reference to a request from India, a request from Indian vendors and a more thorough investigation into the evidence. All that seems to be missing, weird, is it not?

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October 19, 2021 · 05:41

Adaption 103

I just had an idea, it got to me when I was tweeting with a person I know. A few minutes later my mind grabbed back to the age when I had a Dell laptop. Then an idea grabbed me. I wonder why Apple never considered this. When you have more than one device, when you need your MacBook Pro or air too regularly. Did no one consider the power of the docking station, or the port replicator? Instead of connecting device after device, having a station on your desk where you can connect your iPod touch, your iPad, your MacBook, iMac or Mac Pro to all with one replicator in the centre of it all. A setting where they are all connected, with the station also connecting to an external keyboard, external drive and optionally a larger screen. The power of direct connectivity when you get home. The songs, the tablet and all of it to a  larger screen, more storage and not to forget interacting all with one another. No worry whether you had the document on your tablet, your laptop or even your iMac or Mac Pro. Connecting them all through one station. You see, when you have one Apple product, you might have more, I do and many other do too. Even for non Apple products the setting of connecting laptops, desktops, music solutions, and tablets, all whilst giving any the power to connect to Bluetooth speakers is becoming increasingly important, especially as streaming will go from device to device. A multi system station, no matter if it is a docking station or more aptly seeing it as a connecting port replicator will take the foreground in the near future. I synch my iPad, and soon my iPod touch (my iPod Classic will not connect), a larger setting of interactivity is required and consider that when you get home, via the replicator. Connecting to data on tablet, laptop and desktop they can all grasp the data of one another and they can all be used in conjunction. A setting that none have offered, always in the second degree, so why not in the first degree? That would be real innovation and so far none have opted for it, They all want to do each other work, they all want to do the same, but the laptop makes you less mobile, the tablet has its own restrictions, but on the road it is OK. And so on, yet at home we need access to all, we need it all without a larger setting and the cloud is too often a limitation, especially when it is confidential data. The people need their secure environment and anyone stating that the cloud is a safe space is lying to you. Some give you “Cloud security is tight, but it’s not infallible. … But the bigger risk with cloud storage is privacy. Even if data isn’t stolen or published, it can still be viewed. Governments can legally request information stored in the cloud, and it’s up to the cloud services provider to deny access.” 

So why not set the stage where it is with you and with you alone? And when we look at the data breaches with. Microsoft, Estee Lauder, MGM Resorts, Facebook, Zoom, Magellan Health, Cognizant, Nintendo, Twitter, and Whisper. These are places with large infrastructures and cyber sections and they could not keep THEIR data safe, how much of a chance do you have? I am not anti-cloud. It has its uses, but it has a bad safety reputation, as such the replicator gives more and offer more too. It is just a thought, but it Tok me less than 30 minutes to seek out part of all this and write it down and when we add the streaming gaming platform the need increases rapidly.

All devices that need connection, whilst the connection does not always exist. 

So consider what you have and how easy it would be to connect it. Now, if you only have 2 devices the value is not really there, but consider a desktop and a laptop connected giving the user access to both, would that make it? I thought initially to connect the Apple devices, but the setting is much larger and will grow over time. Consider that the MacBook Air has a max of 2TB and so does the new iMac, so why have 2 backups when both can be connected and be connected to a much larger drive, seagate offers 4TB for $99, WD has 6TB for $200, and that offers perspectives to keep your music in one location, not on all locations. Option after option are added as we see more devices connected and I am surprised that no one took it into that direction, especially Apple. 

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October 19, 2021 · 02:47

Direction and Course

We are all driven by doubts. We are all driven by needs and we are all enticed by desires. There is no exception, none at all. Not if you are a cleric, Christian or Muslim. Not if you are a farmer or a politician (although too often I think that the first party is more intelligent than the second one). We are all driven by surges, by vectors and by elements outside ourselves. They are the particles that fuel the internal engine in us and the mindset that accompanies it. I remain on the fence regarding the building scandal in Rotterdam, the political power-drive for a place called Vestia. The simplest side is a mere tally, 524 homes are removed to be replaced by 137 locations to inhabit, with an added 101 apartments for higher incomes and 143 apartments for sale, the tally does not add up. A new station is created with -143 locations. This was about money, plain and simple. So whilst Vestia hides behind “We achieve this by taking an effective and innovative approach to rentals, sales, liveability, maintenance, investments and operating costs. We are committed to providing good service to our customers: the people who rent and buy our homes”, so whilst we see one, we also see that they enabled the removal of 387 social housing locations, it was the simplest math problem. Someone got rich here. Yet in the setting of greed, there is so much out there, Rotterdam is not even the smallest blip on any, not even a Dutch radar. 

There is more out there, the stage of the media is getting out of control, stake holders, the setting of lobbyists that are gracing the foundation of media is getting larger, os getting stronger and the media itself does not care, it is like watching a crack whore reach for the goods. Their grasp towards digital dollars without contemplating the larger stage is ludicrous. As an example look at the home page of the Independent (independent.co.uk), the Los Angeles Times (latimes.com), The Washington Post (washingtonpost.com), and Dagens Nyheter (www.dn.se). Notice the advertisements? Let’s be clear, the papers are allowed to do that, yet consider who can afford that. Consider the cost of a front page advertisement in the paper versus the front page of a website. Consider the stage of who gets the visibility and how they got there. Now there is an opposing side to this some are merely advertising, there is no ‘stake holder’, there is no political need, but that stage is fluidic and siding with the stake holders. Consider the past, how many advertisements for some Microsoft device passed you by? How many claims of mobile data for less, how many ads are localised? Consider seeing the LA Times, seeing “Coliving Homes in Sydney. Coliving homes for rent in Sydney from A$1,300/month, inclusive of weekly housekeeping”, now there is nothing wrong with the ad. And it is powered by Google Ads and there is nothing wrong with that. Yet consider that an apartment costing A$1300 a week has an ad on the front page of the LA Times. The setting is so much larger than even I can understand. This is global and this is not some anti-Google setting, I am making the claim that there is a layer between the media and advertisers. Electronic lobbyists, I call them Stake Holders, and they are raking in millions. The view is not easy, and I am not making a claim that I have it, it is so convoluted on the global scale that no one really has an idea, it would require the Google source data and a very powerful computer to suss it out to the smallest degree. I saw glimmers as Microsoft was advertising its Surface pro, but that could just as easily be seen as a glimmer of delusion. The problem is not me, it is not anyone who might not be able to see it, it will be the media, they are part of it. They are setting a new course, they are setting a course towards their digital dollars at the expense of the people, what I often refer to the ‘click bitches’ they create though emotional articles. A newspaper will give you ‘Pandora papers: biggest ever leak of offshore data exposes financial secrets of rich and powerful’, whilst they also give you “the move was not illegal, and there is no evidence the Blairs proactively sought to avoid property taxes” Consider that journalists waste time on non-illegal actions whilst we see some papers give us ‘Houthi blockade restricts aid’, is that not interesting? The UN was all about attacking Saudi Arabia recently whilst keeping (according to media) Houthi and Iranian elements out of that think-tank presentation. So why are we not given the full view whilst some are wasting our time on “the move was not illegal”. I believe that political lobbyists and digital lobbyists are uniting to some extent, optionally the political lobbyists are also on the digital platform calling themselves ‘stake holders’. This is speculation, this is not proven (yet) and there could be all kinds of ‘evidence’ proving me wrong. I do not know yet, but the views I have seen over the last 15 months proving me to be correct more and more. And now, I am taking the light to my work and looking deeper into it all, because anyone not criticising and digging into his own data will fail from the start, and I do not like failure. But that is just me, to seek a direction and course requires energy and it needs a drive, but what that drive is remains open to debate, even for me.

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October 13, 2021 · 03:11

Chook chook thinking

Why? Because train of thought reads too boring, thats why! So this all happened, or better stated started happening a few hours ago. Someone stated that IBM Z Mainframes are in 96% of all mainframe places. Now, I have no problem with this, I moved out of mainframes 30 years ago, and I still respect what these things can do (they are just too big for my desk). Yet in this, my first question was, what do the other 4% use? A simple question. I got all kinds of answers, yet none of them answered my question ‘What do the other 4% use’, in this it does not matter if it is known, but it is essential to look at.

Why?
Well, in this IBM has a luxury problem, they basically own 96% of that market, but the 4% can become 8% then 16%, at that point the message from IBM becomes 4 out of 5 use our mainframe. When the 96% is 120,000 mainframes it is one thing, when it is based on 960 mainframes it is a whole different story. The numbers matter, that has always been the case (even if Microsoft is in denial now they are shedding market share). 

Reasons
There can be a simple reason. For one epidemiology, if it is about real time numbers, the market is slim, massively slim, compared to that market a size zero model is a mere chunky blobernaut. Cray is one of the few players in that setting and it makes sense that a Cray is there where an IBM is optionally not. Still, I would want to know.

You see, in strategic thinking we have two elements we ALWAYS need to keep one eye on. One is threat the other is weakness. In this example real-time data management is a weakness. Now we need to understand that this market is set to billions and those who desperately need it, that number is not an issue, yet for IBM investing that much for 4% is tactically not sound, not until that marketshare is a lot larger. That makes perfect sense and let’s face it no one owns 100% of a market, if that ever happens we will have a lot more problems than we could possibly understand. 

Why do I care?
Well, for the most I do not, but at present I am not to involved with any SWOT analyses, and the ones I did lately was done for wannabe managers who seemingly only understand bulletpoint memo’s. The idea of any strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analyses that is related to business competition, project planning and capability planning is more important than most people realise. We see it in intelligence, business intelligence and market intelligence. And now we see two new real markets emerging where it is important too. Gaming and SAAS/GAAS. Even as GAAS is still some time away, the need to actively SWOT in all three is there and I believe the players are not too finicky about that and they need to be. As the cloud is oversold and the dangers are underestimated their board of directors need to hold up a mirror where they can tell themselves that it doesn’t matter, and when we understand how completely those people are lying to themselves, at that point you might get the idea that there is a problem. The SWOT has more sides, it tests your capability, your software (Strengths and opportunities) but that needs to be levelled by weaknesses and strength. 

800 years ago
To understand this we need to go back to the good old days (Ghengis Khan). It was he who stated “It is not enough for me to win, my opponents must all fail”. Yes, I admit it is a massively loose translation but it applies to the now. When we stumble over sales people and their unnatural large ego’s, we tend to listen because they make the loudest claims, yet are they valid? Consider Solarwinds and what they enabled criminals to do, when you consider the news last week when we were given ‘SolarWinds hackers stole US sanctions policy data, Microsoft confirms’, it was a weakness and a threat, so when we how long the hack was active and that we now see that policy data is online and open for anyone to look into, what other sides are not yet known? It is not enough for SAAS vendors to look at SWOT, their customers need to do the same thing. So when I considered the 4% is was not because I need to know everything (which at times is still nice as a high executive CIA decision maker has a girlfriend that has size 6 lingerie, his wife is size 11), so who needed to do the SWOT, someone at the CIA or me? One could say both as I am his threat and he is my opportunity. 

The stage of what is what could be remains forever in motion. 

So where from here?
That remains open. For players like Amazon, the enabling of GAAS becomes more and more important, especially when you see the blunders that players like Ubisoft makes, they need to be aware of where their customers are, especially when Netflix becomes active in gaming too. They will have an advantage, but Amazon can counter it, yet there are sides that remain unknown for now and they should not be (not on that level) and there is the rub. Too many rely on external solutions when that solution needs to be in-house. And we can disperse with all the marketing BS that some give like “We are a better company now”, when you drop the ball to that degree there was a massive space for improvement and you merely are on par for not being where you should have been a year ago. An old IBM Statistics wisdom was “You’ll know when you measure”. This sounds corny but it is true, you cannot anticipate and adjust when there is no data and in all this any SWOT analyses would have been usable data. So where was the 4%? I do not know and the poster seemingly did not know either. It might be fair enough, yet when that 4% becomes 8%, when should you have known? It is a question with a subjective answer. Yet in gaming it is less so, especially as I am becoming aware (unproven at present) that Microsoft has one nice trick up their sleeve. There is partial evidence out there that Skyrim will be on PS5 in digital formal only. Several shops now have a ‘DO NOT USE’ for any physical PS5 format of Skyrim. Now, there might be an easy answer for this after all these lockdowns, but it is only 4 weeks away now, so you tell me. Is Microsoft playing its ‘bully’ card? Are they trying to push people to Xbox? It is a fair approach, they did pay 8 billion and change for it, but consider that their actions are set to a larger stage. A stage of millions of angry fans. I solved it for them by creating public domain gaming ideas for any Sony exclusive RPG game. I am not Bethesda, I am a mere IP creator, but when software makers are given a free ride towards Sony exclusives and even if one game hits the mark, the Bethesda market share dwindles to a lower number. Now consider what happens when that happens on Amazon Luna too? I might be a mere 1% factor, but if another one joins me I grow 100% whilst Microsoft dwindles more. For Microsoft Amazon is becoming a real threat and a weakness, for Amazon Netflix is optionally a threat and a weakness whilst Google Stadia is optionally the opportunity for Amazon. 

All SWOT settings that could have been seen from afar from the beginning. It is not everyones train of thought, yet in this day and age, I think it needs to be, the markets and our lives are changing in all kinds of ways too quickly and too large, we need to think head and having a clear grasp on how to apply SWOT in our lives might become essential. 

The difference?
That is a much harder line to follow. It comes down to the word ‘Insight’ and it is a dangerous, a very dangerous word. Because depending on the person this can be Insight, speculated insight, expected insight, and adjusted insight and more than once they are all on one pile making the data less reliable. Insight is also subjective, we all see it differently and that does not mean that I am right and everyone else has a wrong station. No, it is all subjective and most CAN be correct, but as the insight is disturbed by speculated, adjusted and expected versions, the numbers alter slightly. And now we see that 4% was not 4%, is was 7% and 5%, 5% because there were other IBM mainframes in play (adjusted) and 4% was the speculated number and 7% was the expected number. Now we have a very different station, the expected moves us from 96% use our product, towards 9 out of 10 are our customers, which is now a mere step towards 4 out of 5 use IBM. So would you like to bring that conversation to any board of directors? 
They’ll serve your balls for dinner (see image). 

Still feel certain that you do not want to know? In reality most SWOT analyses are seemingly pointless and often amazingly boring, yet in this day and age they are an essential part of business and gaming at $130 billion a year is facing that side as well. So when you consider what I gave you also consider the impact that some shops have ‘DO NOT USE’ for Skyrim preorders, 4 weeks before release, lockdown or not, it beckons all kinds of questions. And to be fair, there could be a simple explanation for all of it, but that too is the consequence of trying to create hypes via YouTube without clearly informing the audience. It is a weakness Microsoft has shown a few times (Bethesda was never completely innocent, but equally never this guilty). 

So what has a game in common with a business setting? It is simple, they both need to manage expectations and that too is a side of SWOT, even as marketing often merely focusses on opportunity, there is a weakness and a threat. The lack of clarity and misinformation are both a weakness (angry customers) and a threat (churning customers) and in the world of gaming the churners are the real danger, they can get the flocking population of angry gamers to come with them and really make numbers spiral downward. In this day and age SWOT is an additional essential way to go, in nearly all walks of life. We simply can not avoid being that naive anymore, not with spiralling energy prices and more and more articles that can at present no longer be found in any supermarket, all whilst plenty of people are in a holding pattern for their incomes. 

It is a train of thought and it is up to you to decide if you want to do it or not, because that was always your right, the right to ignore, but it must be said that it will be at your own peril. 

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